The Grain Elevator at Delphia

Oil on Canvas
18″ x 18 ”
$800
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Delphia
n 1908, the Milwaukee, St. Paul, and Pacific Railroad laid track and began service to the Roundup and beyond areas. About seventeen miles east of Roundup they built a bridge over the Musselshell River and had the Globe Elevator Company of Lewistown construct an elevator for all the neighboring ranchers to store their grain for shipment on their line. They started the bustling town named Delphia so that their steam engines could have water. A fifteen-horsepower gas engine was added to the elevator when they realized it had a seepage problem from the water tables being too high. In the fifties the REA brought electricity to the area, and the pump engine was converted to electricity. The town had a store-post office combo, school, a beautiful park for the residents, and a vehicle road to the outside world. Tales about the height of the slide, the speed of the spinning merry-go-round, and the unsuccessful attempts at flying off the old-fashioned swing still abound. Not so young ex-students chatter about the good education they received in the little school, and ranchers talk fondly of when the railroad was their partner in shipping grain.

Many years ago, the railroad ceased serving the area and sold the grain elevator, along with the surrounding land, to a local rancher, who actually used it to store grain until the pumps could no longer hold back the water. What grain is left in it is rotted remnants from years past; though the line is still there, the power has been turned off; and the building is distinctly tilting, rather like the famous tower in Pisa.

The town is now part of a large ranch. There is a sign stating the population numbers two inhabitants, though even that is an exaggeration for the two remaining houses have renters only occasionally. The store-post office, with its broken, boarded windows, is following in the footsteps of the grain elevator and will soon be just scattered boards rattling in the wind. The road bridge over the Musselshell River has been declared unsafe, and no one dares tempt fate. The railroad bridge is owned by the rancher that bought the elevator. Visitors can drive the back roads or chance a trespassing ticket from our county sheriff and drive on the railroad bridge.